Thursday, July 12, 2012

...just to get you interested. The full statements and a summary of the discussion will be online at some point. One of the nice things about being a non-presenting participant is that I felt free to get a little creative with this:

"The Supreme Court’s July 28th
ruling on the Affordable Care Act reminded the American public just how elastic
the concept of a “tax” can be to a court intent on honoring Oliver Wendell
Holmes’s legacy of deference to the legislative prerogative[i]. The
flexibility of the term is reiterated in economists’ references to the
“inflation tax” imposed by rising prices[ii].
In the same spirit, we could stretch the word “tax” a little further to think
about whether the optimal tax theory literature has applications to immigration
policies. Immigration law (like Chief Justice Roberts’s “tax”) charges fees,
and imposes costs and restrictions on individuals with real consequences for
the equilibrium of domestic markets. Given an open mind and a sufficiently
liberal interpretation of the word “tax”, optimal tax theory offers a framework
for thinking about what could be called “optimal visa policy”, especially with
respect to the treatment of high skill workers."

[i] National Federation of
Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human
Services, et al. No. 11-393. Supreme Court of the U.S. June 28th,
2012. See page 31 of the opinion for acknowledgement of Holmes’s judicial
philosophy.